Directions

1Heat oven to 350 degrees F (325 for a dark or nonstick pan). Lightly grease and flour a 9-by-5-inch loaf pan; set aside.

2To make the mint cake: In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, beating one at a time, until incorporated.

3In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. In a separate small bowl, whisk together buttermilk, peppermint extract and about 20 drops green food coloring. Alternately add flour and buttermilk mixtures to the butter mixture, beginning and ending with the flour, until all ingredients are just combined.

4Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about 1 hour. Remove from oven; cool 10 minutes in loaf pan. Remove from pan and cool completely on a cooling rack.

5When mint cake is completely cool, make the chocolate cake batter: In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add eggs, beating one at a time, until incorporated.

6In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Alternately add flour mixture and buttermilk to the butter mixture, beginning and ending with the flour, until all ingredients are just combined. Add cocoa powder and stir to combine. Set batter aside.

7Slice mint pound cake into 1-inch thick slices. Using a 3-inch wide shamrock cookie cutter, cut a shamrock shape out of each cake slice. Lightly grease and flour a clean 9-by-5-inch loaf pan; carefully prop the pan upright vertically. Carefully stack shamrock shapes on top of each other in center of loaf pan.

8Use a spoon to carefully place batter on either side of shamrock shapes to hold them in place. Carefully cover the rest of the shamrocks with batter; smooth top (you might not use all of the chocolate batter). Bake cake until a toothpick inserted in the center of the chocolate part comes out clean, about 45 minutes to 1 hour.

9Let cake cool in pan 10 minutes, then remove from pan and cool completely on a cooling rack.

10Meanwhile, make the frosting: Beat all ingredients together until light and fluffy, adding more powdered sugar or milk to achieve desired consistency.

11Frost top of fully cooled cake with frosting. Slice and see the shamrock revealed!

Shamrock Reveal Mint-Chocolate Pound Cake

Dude, there’s a shamrock in your pound cake.

It ain’t no luck of the Irish – there is, in fact, a shamrock hiding inside this mint-chocolate flavored pound cake. And if you follow these directions below, you can make it happen. Oh yes.

Firstly, make sure you have all the ingredients you need to make this cake. It’s a wee time consuming, so the last thing you want to encounter is a missing egg or a lack of milk. Also, some of the ingredients need to be at room temperature, so be sure to leave those out for a few hours ahead of time.

OK! Let’s get down to bizniz. Whip up the mint pound cake batter and pour it into your prepared loaf pan.

Bake the cake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, about one hour. Smell the minty cake bliss. Let that baby cool completely before moving on to the next step, mmmk?

Onward! Make the chocolate cake batter and set it aside. Slice the fully cooled mint pound cake into 1-inch thick slices, then cut out a shamrock shape from each slice (a 3-inch wide shamrock cookie cutter is ideal). Save the scraps for snacking or making into cake pops, mayhaps!

Prop a lightly greased and floured loaf pan upright, then stack the shamrocks like so. Now comes what may be the strangest thing I’ve ever done with cake: Carefully spoon cake batter into the crevices on either side of the shamrocks to stabilize them. Do this while the loaf pan is still upright. It’s weird, but it works.

Cover the shamrocks completely with the chocolate cake batter and smooth the top (you might have some leftover chocolate batter – don’t panic! It’s all good). Bake the cake until a toothpick inserted in the chocolate part of the cake comes out clean.

Once the cake is fully cooled, it’s time to frost! I whipped up a simple mint buttercream frosting. It’s deelicious.

Now comes the big reveal. What looks like an ordinary mint chocolate pound cake is, in fact... a shamrock reveal cake! Wah-BAM.

Wow your friends and fellow St. Patrick’s Day revelers with this snazzy cake magic. It’s the next best thing to getting a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.